Children’s Books we have enjoyed or still reread

[Fiz]

A thread about the ballet “Ballet Shoes” has sparked off an enthusiastic discussion of the book, then moved to the Pamela Brown novels about theatre and the Antonia Forest novels. I thought a children’s book thread might be fun. Books I devoured as a child - the Alison Uttley Sam Pig and Little Grey Rabbit books when I was very small, the Cynthia Harnett historical novels, Jane Lane historical novels, all Noel Streatfeild books, all the Pamela Brown novels, the Drina Dances and Wells series, Ruby Ferguson’s Jill pony books, the Chalet School, Mary K Harris books and a wonderful book called Sabina about an American orphan. I can’t find it anywhere. Little Women and the sequels plus others by Louisa May Alcott, the Susan Coolidge Katy and Clover novels, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and the sickly sweet Pollyanna series plus the Anne of Green Gables series. Oof, I’m done unless someone else mentions other books I have forgotten.

[SugarPlumpFairy]

It looks like we had a lot of overlap in our reading!  I was a massive Chalet School fan and still have a full reread of the series now and then. Other ones that still come out for rereading include the Drina and Sadlers Wells books (I only had the first five as a child, I have a full set now but given how much the quality nosedives after the first few I don't think I missed much!), the Jill books (again, I only had a few as a child but have since acquired them all), Anne of Green Gables series and the first three Katy books.  I didn't have all the Noel Streatfeild ones but did have Ballet Shoes and The Circus is Coming (funnily enough the combination of the original thread and seeing a circus tent near Turnham Green while passing on the tube led to me rereading that on Wednesday), and later got the Gemma books too - also, when I was in my first school we started on When The Siren Wailed but my family moved before we'd got very far (army life!) and I didn't get round to reading it until I was an adult. 

 

Others that sprang to mind last night while I was turning this over in my head include the Narnia books, the Famous Five (again, I was a massive fan of these - I read a few of the Secret Seven but they never gripped me in the same way) and also the Malory Towers (...although I always had a sneaking suspicion that the character I was most like was Gwendoline) and St Clares series.  Five Children & It (and the Phoenix/Amulet sequels), The Railway Children, Carrie's War.  Some of the Roald Dahl books.  Sweet Valley Twins was my guilty pleasure at one point but I tended to read the library copies rather than have any of my own, so I haven't really revisited them as an adult - Babysitters Club likewise.  Saddle Club books - that's another one where I had a few as a child but have acquired rather more since!  I expect if I went upstairs and studied our bookshelves I could probably find more examples, we have a shocking amount of children's books for a childfree couple because I hate throwing things out and often get the urge to reread things. 

[Fiz]

Snap for Famous Five, Narnia, Malory Towers and St Clare’s plus E. Nesbit books. Most of my books came from school and local libraries.  My parents did encourage us both to read. 

Edited April 26 by Fiz

[Jan McNulty]

Famous Five, Secret Seven, Mallory Towers, John Buchan books, Rider Haggard books (both as a teenager), the Mary Elwyn Patchett Brumby books, any number of books about horses (including one called Janet Must Ride which I used to leave lying around).  Lots of other authors I can't even remember.

 

Chatting to a cousin I hadn't seen for over 30 years recently he said to me that what he most remembered was me having my nose always stuck in a book! 

[Sophoife]

On 26/04/2024 at 17:41, SugarPlumpFairy said:

we have a shocking amount of children's books for a childfree couple because I hate throwing things out and often get the urge to reread things. 

 

No such thing!!

 

Childless, hate throwing things out, often get the urge to re-read, sometimes need a comfort read.

 

Antonia Forest is the author for me, then we have, in no particular order, and among others...

• Jean Estoril/Mabel Esther Allan
• Noel Streatfeild (Apple Bough is my favourite)
• Elsie J Oxenham (her ballet-themed books are risible though)
• Clare Mallory
• Nancy Breary (particularly enjoy Film Star Drusilla Cathcart and her...eccentric...schoolmates)
• Elinor M Brent-Dyer (Chalet plus non-Chalet)
• Pamela Brown
• Dorita Fairlie Bruce (Dimsie and Springdale - my darling friend Georgie calls her Dorita Fairly Boring despite owning a full set)
• Susan Coolidge (all five Katy books)
• LM Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables, Emily of New Moon, Pat of Silver Bush, and all the sequels and stand-alones)
• Joanna Cannan (mother of the Pullein-Thompson sisters)
• Gwendoline Courtney
• Lorna Hill (Wells and non-Wells)
• Ruby Ferguson
• the Pullein-Thompson sisters (Diana who wrote Janet Must Ride @Jan McNulty , Josephine and Christine)
• Jean Ure
• Elfrida Vipont (Haverards)
• Constance M White (manages to combine ponies and boarding school, also ballet and boarding school)
• Barbara Willard (Mantlemass)
• Mara Kay (Masha and The Youngest Lady-in-Waiting)
• Enid Blyton (Famous Five, Malory Towers, and St Clare's)
• Charlotte Sometimes by Penelope Farmer
• The Thirteen Days of Christmas by Jenny Overton
• A Traveller in Time by Alison Uttley
• Joanna Lloyd's Bramber Manor school stories
• Jean Richardson's Moth series (The First Step, Dancer in the Wings, One Foot on the Ground)

 

[Fiz]

Masha and The Youngest Lady in Waiting are two of my favourite novels of all time. I finally acquired a paperback copy of Masha last week and reread them both and cried in the same places I had as a child. I think they were the last children’s books that I read as a child. I then moved onto adult fiction and biography etc.

[Pas de Quatre]

No point in writing another list which would contain the same titles, but nobody appears to have mentioned Heidi - I adored it, and the sequels.

[Sophoife]

47 minutes ago, Fiz said:

Masha and The Youngest Lady in Waiting are two of my favourite novels of all time. I finally acquired a paperback copy of Masha last week and reread them both and cried in the same places I had as a child. I think they were the last children’s books that I read as a child. I then moved onto adult fiction and biography etc.

Poor Sophie. Poor Sophie's Papa. Masha clearly had a gift for friendship.

[Jan McNulty]

Hello @SugarPlumpFairy and a belated welcome to the Forum!

[LinMM]

The three childrens  books which left their mark the most on me were Heidi The Silver Sword and The Secret Garden. 
My mum and dad used to shop on Saturday afternoons and I often stayed at home to read ( although as I was only 8-10ish probably illegal now!!)

Once I remember my mum being surprised to see me in floods of tears on their return  when reading Heidi and many years later I finally made it to Poland (when it was  still behind “the iron curtain”) something I’d always wanted to do since reading Ian Serrailliers  classic. 
When a little older I remember reading a book called “ The Camomile Lawn” and cycling all around Ockham( in Surrey)  trying to find it!! 
As a much older teenager I  also made it eventually to Gavin Maxwells beach Sandaig ( Camusfearna) where he used to live….. long after he’d left though. I  Read every single one  of his books in the end but more when older teenager and very early 20’s. 
Makarova signed her autograph on “The Rocks Remain” and seemed quite bemused by the pictures of otters in it! 
 

Edited April 27 by LinMM

[Lindsay]

Wow @sophoife we must be leading parallel lives.  I have read literally everything on your list - with the exception of more than a couple Elsie J Oxenham which remain primarily my mother’s passion.  Books were sourced mostly from my Mum’s collection, libraries and intensive scouring of the second hand bookshops in Hay-on-Wye.  Charlotte Sometimes was my absolute favourite amongst my “own” as opposed to inherited discoveries and I also loved the Trebizon books.  And the hunt to re-buy lost favourites continues - I recently found a full set of Dimsies (not the 1980s rewritten abomination!) in Oxfam and am happily working through them.  I do actually read “grown up” books too but am increasingly finding that the standard of writing in some new fiction is lower than that served up to “children” last century. Which conclusion truly lets me know that I am getting old…….

[Sophoife]

@Lindsay when I moved out of home my mother gave all my hardback Chalets and Drinas to a second hand bookshop. Twenty years later I walked into a (different) SHBS and the proprietor said, "Oh, I've been waiting to see you. Are these yours?" and presented me with five of the Chalets, all with my name in them!! He wouldn't take anything for them, either.

 

Oh yes, Trebizon was an excellent modern boarding school series. Forgot to mention them!!

[LinMM]

I did enjoy reading the book called “The Camomile Lawn” mentioned above but nothing to do with the one in Ockham!!! 

A slightly muddled memory as all these things are 40 and 50 years ago now!! 

Cycling around Ockham I was involved in a survey as a student it was something to do with Wisley as I lived in walking distance of Wisley Gardens but remember being told to try to view this Camomile lawn in a garden in Ockham and cycling around trying to find the road etc!! 
By the time I read The Camomile Lawn in late 80’s my cycling around everywhere days were over!! 

 

[taxi4ballet]

So many I know and love - but I need to add a few: My Friend Flicka, Jill's Gymkhana, Misty of Chincoteague, The Incredible Journey.

 

 

[bridiem]

Some other favourites of mine in addition to many of those already mentioned were (are!) The Secret of the Loch by Frances Cowen (mysterious, enticing, frightening); the Melling School books by Margaret Biggs (kindly, absorbing, with interesting and attractive characters); and 101 Dalmatians and its sequel, The Starlight Barking (sublime, even though I wasn't a dog-lover). And not really a children's book, but I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith absolutely captivated me, and still does.

[Sophoife]

I love I Capture the Castle, and how did I forget Melling, @bridiem?!

 

@taxi4ballet Jill and her Gymkhana come under Ruby Ferguson, and my favourite of Mary O'Hara's trilogy is Green Grass of Wyoming as Ken grows up.

[Legseleven]

I loved so many of these! Plus the Jean Richardson (I think) books - The First Step trilogy - and the Jean Ure books.